On airplanes, emergency exits are provided in the fuselage, especially behind the wings. These emergency exits are intended for emergency evacuations, said exits being controlled from the inside and/or outside of the airplane. Quite clearly, such emergency exits must leave a passage wide enough to allow for evacuation of the passengers.
Up until now, such emergency exits are embodied in the form of doors whose structure is similar to the structure of the normal access doors of the airplane.
However, the embodiment of a door necessarily involves interrupting the continuity of the fuselage of the airplane, which causes difficulties, in particular owing to the need to use reinforcing pieces so as to take account of this continuity interruption. Thus, the means for embodying a door is a cumbersome, costly and complicated process, this being justified when this involves normal access doors, but far less so when this involves an emergency door only to be used in exceptional circumstances.
In addition, this type of emergency exit presents a large number of drawbacks mainly inherent in a door structure. In fact, the door risks getting stuck and the time to open it is relatively long. Furthermore, the handling of opening handles is often rendered difficult and also this type of door is heavy.